Former Chatham Coalition leaders run for County Commissioners

Posted Monday, March 3, 2008

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Pittsboro, NC - Citizen advocates Sally Kost and Jeffrey Starkweather are running as a team in the Democratic primary for Chatham County Commissioners from Districts 1 and 2 respectively.

Kost, chair of the Chatham County Planning Board and former vice chair of the Chatham Coalition grassroots political organization, has more than 20 years of experience in public budgeting, including six years as budget director for Orange County. She has also been active in the Democratic Party as a member of the executive committee, serving as chair and vice chair of East Williams precinct. A native North Carolinian and political science graduate of N.C. State University, she has lived in the Triangle for 20 years, including nearly six years in northeast Chatham.

Starkweather, co-founder and former chair of the Chatham Coalition, has been a citizen advocate since moving to Pittsboro more than 35 years ago. He is secretary of the Chatham County Economic Development Corporation, co-chair of the Chatham Housing Coalition, a longtime civil rights attorney and a former member of the County Planning Board. He was editor and co-publisher of the Chatham County Herald for 11 years.

“Sally and I believe that the new County Board of Commissioners has made great advances toward more open government, responsible land-use planning, green economic development and quality schools under the leadership of George Lucier, Carl Thompson and Tom Vanderbeck,” Starkweather said.

“We want to bring our additional experience to the Board at this critical juncture as we face increasingly complex growth and economic pressures that affect our schools, our natural resources and our quality of life,” he said.

Kost said, “Our experiences in public financing, economic development, land-use planning and citizen advocacy make us keenly aware of the costs and impacts of unmanaged growth and the importance of open, responsible and informed governance.”

“We believe in community collaboration and we want voters to hold us accountable for our promises and our actions,” she said. “We have been working with public officials, consultants and citizens on innovative approaches to the challenges Chatham faces, and we look forward to the opportunity of being even more involved as elected officials.”

In addition to their political advocacy, both candidates have extensive professional experience in government.

As budget director for Orange County from 1991 to 1997, Kost was involved with two bond campaigns, capital financing, debt modeling, helping to develop school building design standards, and administering a $90 million budget.

She previously served as a budget analyst and budget director in Wake County, where she spent much of her time on school capital planning.

Kost has also been a financial analyst at IBM and an analyst for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors in Washington, D.C. She served as a legislative analyst for the state of Nebraska, and a program auditor for the state of Tennessee.

She has a master’s in public administration from Tennessee State University.

Kost is a member of the Triangle J Smart Growth Committee, Chatham’s Major Corridor Ordinance Task Force, the Haw River Assembly, Sierra Club and Chatham Democratic Women.

She has been married to Tom Kost for 32 years and they have one son in graduate school.

Through the Chatham Coalition, Starkweather and Kost collaborated with diverse citizens and community leaders to develop a platform of issues. They successfully supported candidates for county commissioners and school board. Starkweather co-founded Pittsboro Together in 2005 and successfully supported candidates for Mayor and Town Board.

Starkweather has spent the past year working with the Chatham Economic Development Corporation, consultants from the University of North Carolina and others to develop a strategic plan emphasizing “place-based” economic development, including green and high-tech industry, small businesses, arts, recreation and tourism. Before devoting himself full-time to his campaign, he served as the part-time Executive Director of the North Carolina Smart Growth Alliance.

In 2005 he was a Fellow of the Institute of Political Leadership and in 2006 he was named Tar Heel of the Week by the Raleigh News and Observer.

He has served on the boards of Chatham’s Affordable Housing Task Force, Mid-Carolina Workforce Development, Chatham Citizens for Effective Communities and ChathamArts. He is a member of the Triangle J Smart Growth Committee, Haw River Assembly, Friends of the Rocky River, Sierra Club and Chatham Democratic Women.

He has worked as a federal public defender and civil rights attorney specializing in employment, disabilities and mental health issues. From 2004 to2006 he was an attorney for the Governor’s Advocacy Council for Persons with Disabilities.

He has a law degree from N.C. Central University and an undergraduate degree in political science and economics from the University of Redlands. He has also studied city and regional planning at the graduate level at UNC-Chapel Hill.

A competitive tennis player and avid bicyclist, he co-founded the Chatham Soccer League in 1983 and served as a volunteer coach for three years.

Starkweather worked for the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare in Washington D.C. (1970-72) as a staff advisor for civil rights, equal employment opportunity and operational planning. He also served as an administrative assistant to U.S. Senate Majority Leader Hugh Scott (1969-70).

He has been married to Dee Reid for 22 years. He has two children who graduated from Northwood High School and his daughter, son-in-law and two granddaughters live in northern Chatham.